Category Archives: Marquette

The Wooden Legacy tournament bracket was revealed today. Marquette will start the competition off with a game against Cal State Fullerton (“CSF”) on Thanksgiving afternoon. MU’s game will begin at approximately 3:30pm CT, depending on what time the preceding Miami (FL) vs. George Washington (“GWU”) contest ends.

Last year CSF’s final RPI was a poor 270 and they won’t be a good team this year either. Assuming MU wins, the most significant variable on how bad of an RPI hit Marquette takes will be determined based on CSF’s win-loss record.

Marquette University’s Buzz Williams was one of many coaches watching Howard Pulley beat the Travelers 90-78 in Peach Jam play this morning.

Playing alongside 2014 phenom Tyus Jones, rising junior guard Jarvis Johnson (DeLaSalle HS, Minneapolis, Minn.) took on a scoring role with 22 points on 7/11 shooting and didn’t turn the ball over in 28 minutes played. Johnson knocked down 4 of his 5 3-point attempts, bringing his effective field goal percent for the game to 81.8%.Continue reading Recruiting: 2015 PG Jarvis Johnson→

Lakeville North high school and D1 Minnesota guard J.P. Macura has a big month ahead of him as interest from colleges has recently picked up.

The 6’5” rising senior has been thought to be a strong Butler lean, but the decision by Brad Stevens to leave for the Boston Celtics has brought about renewed and new interest from numerous schools.

Macura recently told GopherHole that among the schools he’s heard from since the Stevens news are Miami (FL) and Marquette. Today, word from the D1 Minnesota camp is that Miami has now offered as has North Carolina State. Macura’s opportunities should continue to grow in the coming weeks. [7/11/13 4:40pm update: Macura reports that he has been offered by Minnesota today, his first Big Ten invite.]Continue reading ﻿Recruiting: 2014 J.P. Macura→

CrackedSidewalks (“CS”) makes some points about individual factors and their related concerns. The commentary is good and valid, but we’ll throw out some additional food for thought.

♦ The last 5 games included 3 against tough competition (Syracuse; Notre Dame twice) and the other two were on the road.

♦ Marquette’s eFG% hasn’t been consistently great (although the 64.9% eFG vs. Notre Dame in Milwaukee was a Big East season best), but it’s been solid. Their worst performance in the past 11 games was at St. John’s. While not a good team overall, the kids from Queens are very good defensively and have the nation’s top shot blocker (block %) in Chris Obekpa. MU made 22/45 2FG for 48.9% despite being blocked 11 times, including 7 alone courtesy of Obekpa.

♦ Turnovers are ugly, there’s no denying that.

♦ CS notes that the OR% differential has narrowed recently and that, “since the Villanova game, defensive rebounding has been worse and worse and now no longer masks the turnover deficiencies.”

While that’s how the 5-game trend calculates out, the reality is that Marquette’s DR% has improved sequentially in its past 4 games (Opponent’s OR% starting 5 games ago to most recent: 45.5%, 43.6%, 40.0%, 36.2%, 31.6%). It’s worth noting that the 45.5% belongs to Syracuse, one of the best OR% teams in the nation.

♦ Finally, a subject we don’t like to give much time to because it’s so far down on the list of factors important to winning a basketball game: Free throws. CS comments that they are “leaving out FTR, because it’s irrelevant (repeat after me: FTR is irrelevant).” Normally, we’d love this comment and often make similar statements.

However, getting to the line may be more important for Marquette than it is for their peers.
Marquette’s 2012-13 record when their free throw rate is better/same/worse than the other team:

MU’s FTR is…

Win – Loss

Better

20-2

Same

0-1

Worse

3-5

TOTAL

23-8

In terms of correlation of FTR to OE, for all Big East teams combined excluding MU the average is +.005 over the last two seasons. The Warriors sit above +.040.

Free throws aren’t a big deal at the end of the day. However, for a team like Marquette that isn’t a dominant squad, the FTR differential can become more of a factor in games than it might for others.
This team earned its 14-4 conference record, but it’s still a bit surprising/impressive that they were able to do it. Despite an ugly turnover rate in conference, MU’s offense still had the Big East’s top efficiency. Were eFG% and OR% more important than FTR? Absolutely. But to call FTR irrelevant to this Marquette team is something we can’t quite do.

LNH Notes: Long, slim guard with a versatile skill set. Could help at point guard, but we view him as more of a wing who can handle and pass the ball in college. Defensively he should be able to cover a variety of assignments. Solid player in a lot of areas.
+ Nike EYBL: Played for Wisconsin Playground Elite with Rashad Vaughn
+ June 2013 rankings: 70, 90 , 93 (average = 84.3) per ESPN/Scout/Rivals. We think a borderline top 100 ranking is reasonable.
+ Rose to fame with a big weekend in EYBL, highlighted by a heavily watched Howard Pulley vs Playground Elite game in which Cohen scored a season-high 24 points.
+ LNH has seen in person.

LNH Notes: J.P. is a dangerous threat from outside and has tremendous range on his shot. However, somewhat similar to what we saw with Josh Oglesby (current Iowa guard; Iowa Barnstormers travel team; high school class of 2011), he also uses his size and aggressiveness on offense. Is Macura a “shooter”? Yes. However, J.P. isn’t just a 3-point specialist who stands at the arc waiting to shoot. He’ll get grimy and physical and it’s that aggressiveness combined with shooting skill that we especially like.